Igloo Builders

Piper is working on a project for school where she chooses a Native American tribe, learns about their traditions, and then does a bunch of research, a project, a report, and a class presentation about them. She chose the Inuits, so we've been immersed in Inuit/Eskimo culture around here for a couple weeks.

She had a great idea for a project, though... she wanted to build an igloo. I had recently borrowed a great igloo-building tool from our local scout troop, so yesterday Piper, Julia and I set out up the South Fork of Provo Canyon looking for a good spot to build. We found it way up near a spot where we'd been sledding in years past.

The bottom line: it's a lot harder to build an igloo than you might think from watching Nanook knock his out in about an hour. Ours took closer to 8! But it was a good experience for the girls, who learned a lot about the trials of hiking in deep snow (3 feet!) and hard work with a shovel. Here are some photos from the adventure:

Just for the record, the 8 hour construction time was primarily due to two factors: it was the first igloo any of us had ever built or seen first-hand; plus, the instructions on the igloo tool recommended 2-3 adults when building the igloo, but we gave it a shot with 1 adult, a 7 year old and an 8 year old. I can attest things would have gone more smoothly if we had followed the instructions more closely! :-)